For Wednesday: A Few Last Sonnets...

 

For Wednesday's class, read the following Sonnets from the end of the collection:

#'s 135, 136, 138 (see the variant of 138 below), 144, 145, 147 

Q1: Discuss how the various puns on the word "will" change how we read Sonnets 135 and/or 136. Do the puns make this sonnet obscene or playful? Intimate or obnoxious? Is this some "bedroom banter" between two lovers, or a way to lampoon and humiliate her?

Q2: Sonnet 138 is one of the few sonnets that come down to us in two versions, the earliest of which was published in an anthology of poems (some Shakespeare's, some other poets') called The Passionate Pilgrim. The 'original' version is printed below. What are some of the main things you notice between the two versions? Which one do you feel is more powerful?

Sonnet 138 a

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutored youth,

Unskilful in the world's false forgeries.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although I know my years be past the best,

I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue,

Outfacing faults in love with love's ill rest.

But wherefore says my love that she is young?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue,

And age in love loves not to have years told.

   Therefore I'll lie with love, and love with me,

    Since that our faults in love thus smothered be. 

Q3: Looking at Sonnets 144 and 147, what has chiefly gone wrong with this relationship? Why does he now see the woman, which he claims to have loved deeply only a few sonnets ago, "as black as hell, as dark as night?" (147). Do we get any hint at what made her so 'dark' in his eyes? 

Q4: Sonnet 145 is considered an anomaly, and possibly, a sonnet that was not even written by Shakespeare. However, it contains a pun that seems to be autobiographical to Shakespeare alone (see if you can find it). Why do you think this simple, even sweet, poem is lodged at the end between so many fierce and nasty poems? How does it contrast with a poem like 144?